Humans are wired to compete. As a natural byproduct of evolution, competition helps ensure that each individual gains the maximum amount of resources to survive and procreate. And this natural desire to compete and compare ourselves to others is also a prominent feature in workplaces.
However, this natural desire to compete doesn’t have to be a negative feature. And when the power of the competitive spirit is harnessed in the workplace, it can actually lead to some positive benefits.
In this article, we cover what workplace competitions are, why they’re important, and some ideas for how you can get started with organizing your own workplace competitions.
What are workplace competitions?
Workplace competitions are games, contests or activities that involve coworkers competing against each other to win a prize or recognition. They can be directly related to the job, such as performance competitions, or they can be entirely separate from work, such as sports matches.
Regardless of the type of competition, it’s important to always ensure that the competition enhances teamwork, morale and motivation — and doesn’t hinder it. Therefore, when holding workplace competitions, always be sure to keep an eye on how your employees respond.
William Cannon, Founder and CEO of Uplead believes that “if the employees keep their mind positive and maintain their focus on work, competition can be a positive experience”. This is an example of the message that should be sent to employees when it comes to workplace competitions. They should focus on doing their best work and not overthink the performance of others.
The importance of workplace competitions
The main benefit of workplace competitions is that they motivate employees to succeed and push themselves. Devin Schumacher, Founder of digital marketing agency SERP, stated it well when he wrote that “a competitive environment pushes you out of your comfort zone and can turn the world into your oyster.”
But workplace competitions don’t only have the power to bring out the best in your employees — they can also help foster team morale and camaraderie. When organized properly, workplace competitions are fun, and sharing fun activities with coworkers can promote team building.
Top 20 workplace competition ideas
Below, we will be looking at 20 workplace contest ideas that can bring your team members closer while helping everyone unwind and have fun.
1. Cooking contest
Since eating is a universal experience, it can be a great tool for bonding in the workplace. In fact, one study even showed that regularly eating with others can improve your health and wellbeing. For this reason, a cook-off or a bake-off can be an enjoyable opportunity for employees to bond over food.
A cook-off or bake-off involves first picking a theme for employees to recreate. Some examples are chili, guacamole or dessert. Participating employees then bring in their homemade dish to enter in the competition. All employees can get the chance to taste the dishes and vote on a winner.
2. Photo contest
A photo contest is a great opportunity for employees to share a more personal side of themselves at work while also promoting bonding. Photo contests are also relatively easy competitions to organize. The first step involves choosing a theme. Some examples of themes are best childhood photo, best pet photo or best vacation photo.
Participants simply submit their photos and allow other employees to vote on a winner. Although this competition isn’t directly related to work, it’s a fun activity that encourages some lighthearted workplace competition and team building.
3. Steps challenge
Research shows that healthy employees tend to be more productive. For this reason, companies are investing more and more in employee health and wellbeing programs. And one great way to motivate your team to get fitter is by organizing a steps challenge.
A steps challenge can be done without any extra equipment costs, as most employees can track their steps with their smartphone app or wearable fitness tracker. All you have to do is establish a timeframe for the competition and procure a prize. A steps challenge is a fun competition that has some tangible health benefits.
4. Employee advocacy contest
Encouraging your employees to be advocates for the company on social media is an effective way to increase brand visibility and attract customers. However, it isn’t always easy to get employees to share company-related content on their personal social media feeds. And for this reason, an employee advocacy contest is a great motivator.
The easiest way to run an employee advocacy contest is with the help of a tool, such as Smarp or DSMN8. These tools enable the administrators to track and keep an overview of engagement on company-related content that employees share.
However, without a specialized tool, it’s still possible to run an employee advocacy contest. You could simply request that employees submit screenshots of their engagement stats, and whoever has the highest engagement is the winner.
5. Costume contest
Research shows that there are some serious benefits to having fun at work, such as increased employee engagement and higher performance. And what says fun more than dressing up in a costume? For this reason, Halloween costume contests can be a great way to inject some fun into your workplace.
However, when organizing a workplace costume contest, it’s important to make employees aware in advance as to which costumes will be permitted. Costumes that are offensive, gruesome, political, religious or sexy are considered a no-go. Therefore, make sure employees are made aware in advance that inappropriate or potentially offensive costumes will not be permitted.
6. Decoration contest
Another idea for a holiday-themed workplace competition is a deck-out-your-desk contest. A deck-out-your-desk contest is an enjoyable way for employees to get into the holiday spirit through decorating their workspaces.
Although deck-out-your-desk contests are typically Christmas-themed, they can also be secular, which makes them more inclusive for all employees. Employees can be given the option to decorate their desks in any theme they’d like, and then employees can vote on the best decked desk.
7. Employee of the month
When done correctly, performance competitions are a great way to ramp up employee motivation. One of the most common types of performance competitions is based on key performance indicators. For example, sales teams could award a prize to the employee who overachieved their sales target by the highest amount.
It’s important to make sure to monitor the engagement and camaraderie in your team when holding performance competitions. While some teams may benefit from them, others may suffer.
Mike Grossman, the CEO of Goodhire, has some good advice for employees participating in performance competitions: “If your colleagues are constantly vying for the top spot and you fear that it’s impacting your mental health, simply let your results do the talking.”
8. Trivia games
Trivia games are game-show style contests that make great workplace competitions. Not only are trivia games often intellectually stimulating and exciting, but they can be great for team building for remote employees as well. There are also various types of trivia game styles so that you can mix it up.
When setting up the trivia game, it’s important to make sure the questions are all appropriate and inclusive. For example, if many of your employees are international, questions about the local culture may not be easy to answer for everyone.
9. Scavenger hunt
Scavenger hunts aren’t only for children’s birthday parties, and they make for great workplace competitions as well. While scavenger hunts typically take more effort and creativity to organize than other competitions, they can be worth it. Not only are scavenger hunts enjoyable, but they can also help with onboarding and team bonding.
To create the scavenger hunt, you’ll need to decide on a list of items or information that participants will have to obtain. For example, if the scavenger hunt is for onboarding, it may include having new hires visit different departments to gather information. This could also help them learn about the company and meet colleagues.
10. Sports match
A sports match is a classic competition that can help promote physical activity and team bonding in the workplace. However, it’s important to keep in mind that not all types of sports are suitable for the workplace. Since high-contact sports, such as football, could lead to injuries, it’s best to avoid these.
Low-contact and inclusive types of sports, such as table tennis, badminton or softball, are perfect for the workplace. And employees that are not interested in competing can cheer on their colleagues from the sidelines.
11. Coworker trivia
Whereas general trivia questions concern topics like world history, sports and pop culture, coworker trivia has everything to do with your team at the office. This type of “how well do you know me?” game can be fun to play in smaller, close-knit groups — especially if you’ve been working with the same people for a few years.
So long as you keep it respectful, a coworker trivia game can bring the team closer. Questions can include things like “How many cats does Sandra have?”, “How would Ezra spend an ideal afternoon?” and “What show is Josh currently binge-watching?”
12. Best pitch
It can be useful to practice your pitching skills while having a laugh with your coworkers! If you work in marketing or sales, this game can get especially interesting. All you have to do is pick any object around the office — such as a nondescript pen, notepad or filing cabinet — and take turns improvising a sales pitch for it.
The good thing about made-up pitches is that you can get as creative or silly as you want. To identify the winner, you can have a deciding committee or ask everyone in the group to cast a vote for their favorite pitch.
13. Creative contest
Whether you’re in a creative industry, flexing your imagination on the daily, or an unrelated industry, disconnected from your creativity, a creative contest can challenge everyone pleasantly. The theme can be anything at all: haiku writing, photography, wreath making... The options are endless. Not to mention, coming up with ideas for a creative contest can also be a fun little challenge in itself!
Participating in creative activities is thought to have several benefits, such as boosting mindfulness and reducing stress.
14. Customer service contest
Whether you run a call center or have customer service agents assisting people in person, you can reward your best performing employees through a friendly competition. The concept is simple: the agent that gets the most positive reviews over the course of a month wins a prize.
If you like, you can give prizes to your runners-up too, as that can help engage and motivate teams further.
15. Bracket contest
Bracket contests can be ideal for bigger teams.
Each department can hold interdepartmental competitions, with the winner (or winners) progressing to “battle” colleagues from other departments. For example, the person who bakes the tastiest cupcakes from your legal department gets to face equally skilled confectioners from other departments in a new bake-off round.
Besides individual entries, employees can collaborate in groups of twos or threes, with winning groups progressing to the next round.
16. Bingo
So, not every team consists of competitive individuals. In fact, sometimes work can get so stressful that the last thing you want is to have to use your remaining brainpower to defeat a colleague at a game of Battleship.
If you and your team are looking for a more relaxing activity to bond over and unwind a little, then a few rounds of bingo could do the trick. You and your colleagues can decide if you want the prizes to be silly or useful — or a combination. Although if you’re spending money on it, it may as well be something of use, like a spa day pass or a gift card.
17. Raffle
Much like with bingo, organizing a raffle can be ideal for teams that aren’t too fond of competitive activities.
A raffle, however, can also be organized in conjunction with one of the activities mentioned above. For example, since you can’t really force everyone to participate in a cooking contest, you can hold a raffle for those who do. If you have enough participants, you can buy a prize for the winner and use the rest of the money from the tickets to make a donation to a local animal shelter or charity.
18. Conversion contest
Like “employee of the month”, this is a performance-based contest for sales teams specifically. The concept is simple: the person who achieves the most conversions over a predetermined period wins a prize.
Rewarding top-performing employees can keep team members motivated, giving them an additional incentive to challenge themselves. At the same time, you want to ensure that the competition remains fun and doesn’t start to create tension and resentment between colleagues.
19. Escape room
Splitting yourselves up into teams and going to an escape room can be a great way to encourage some friendly competition among employees while also putting your problem-solving skills to use.
To ensure a fair game, pick rooms of around the same difficulty level, as escape rooms can range in terms of how challenging they are. Also try to form teams that are equal in numbers and consist of different types of thinkers! These interactive puzzle rooms require you to solve various kinds of riddles, each requiring a different approach.
20. Most “No”s
If you haven’t heard of Most “No”s, it’s what you would get if you were to reverse the concept of employee of the month. Indeed: it’s when you reward the person on your sales team that gets the most rejections over the span of a week.
If you’re thinking that that’s counterproductive, it doesn’t have to be, thanks to reverse psychology. Your employees are unlikely to want to win the title of most “no”s.
However, since it works by comparison, someone on the team is bound to close the lowest number of deals in relation to everyone else — and by giving them something in return, you can relieve some of the pressure or disappointment they might be feeling. Just make sure that everyone keeps it respectful and lighthearted!
Final thoughts
Workplace competitions can be a great way to encourage team bonding, motivate employees, encourage healthy competition and increase employee happiness. However, when organizing workplace competitions, it’s important to be mindful of how employees respond. If there is low interest or the competition is leading to hostility between employees, then this is a sign that it may not be the right type of competition.
You’ll also want to consider the intended purpose of the competition — whether it’s to improve performance, raise money, promote healthy habits, gamify training or improve team bonding. Once you’ve established the purpose, it will be easier to decide what type of competition is most suitable.
Since people have a natural inclination to compete with one another at work, why not harness this drive to achieve positive benefits? Workplace competitions are the perfect way to do just that.
Do you have any competition or contest ideas to add to the mix? Let us know in the comments below!
This article is a partial update of an earlier version originally published on November 1, 2022, and contains contributions by Electra Michaelidou.